Hello everyone, Joe Wahler here again for some more of my opinion, I recently read this piece in the NYT by Mark Bittman and thought how thoroughly condescending and at the same time naive of him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24bittman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hpw
If you tax soda the only thing that will be accomplished is that you will take more money from poor, uneducated people. They will not stop drinking soda, it's loaded with caffeine, and sugar.
The answer is to do something effective, educate don't legislate, and if the people choose not to participate... well that's their choice, not anyone else's.
The point of good food is not to attempt to feel superior to, or to pass judgement upon, or to impose your will upon those so less fortunate that they don't know the difference between pork injected with a solution to enhance flavor, and a proper piece of old breed loin. That condescending attitude will only serve to alienate those whom you are trying to reach.
It's like placing a tax on soda, "We know what's best for you, and will punish you for this behavior", that attitude is smug at best, and it may fill you with a self satisfied sense of superiority, but it's a false one because in the end, you want those whom you are punishing with your taxes as your allies, not your underlings.
These people are your fellow citizens, they are not your charges to care for because you know best. They have the exact same rights to do with their own bodies as you have. This debate is actually a political one, it's the age old battle between collectivism on the tax side, and individualism on the other. Barring a completely and totally irrefutable argument from the former, I shall always choose the latter. Because the latter always allows one to participate in the former if he so chooses, while the former by it's very nature precludes the latter.
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